Why Leather Shoes Cost What They Do — and Where Your Money Goes
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Aug 11, 2026•3 min read
A pair of imported branded leather shoes in Kathmandu can cost several times what the same construction costs to make. Understanding the breakdown explains both why good shoes are not cheap and why they are often overpriced.
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What actually goes into the cost?
Roughly, for a well-made leather shoe:
- Materials — the hide, lining, sole, thread, adhesive. Full-grain upper leather is the single largest material cost, and there is no way to reduce it without dropping to a lower grade.
- Labour — cutting, skiving, closing, lasting, finishing. A formal shoe passes through many pairs of hands.
- Tooling — lasts, dies, patterns. Amortised across production runs.
- Overhead — the factory, machinery, quality control.
That is the shoe. Everything after that is distribution.
Where does the rest of the money go?
In a traditional import model, a shoe passes through a manufacturer, an exporter, an importer, a distributor and a retailer. Each one takes a margin, and each margin is applied on top of the previous one. By the time a shoe reaches a shelf in Kathmandu it can carry several multiples of its production cost, plus duty and freight — none of which made the shoe better.
You are also paying for marketing, retail rent, and the brand's own margin.
How direct-to-consumer changes the number
Pomory grew out of Himalayan Leather, a supplier of raw hides. For decades our best material was exported and sold back into the region under international labels at prices the local market could not reach.
Making the shoes ourselves removes the exporter, the importer and the distributor from the chain. Same hide, same construction standard, without four layers of margin stacked on top. That is the entire logic of the business, and it is why we describe the pricing as honest rather than cheap — the shoe costs what a shoe costs.
What should you be willing to pay for?
- Full-grain upper leather over corrected or bonded.
- A leather lining that breathes.
- A sole that can be replaced rather than one moulded on.
- A last shaped for real feet.
What you should not pay for is the logo, the shipping across two oceans, or five people's margins.
Read the longer version on the about page, or see what it translates to on the shop.